The lake was cold today. The dredgeman noticed this, just as he noticed the dirty grey sky and the brown leaves falling from the willow trees. The banks of the rivermouth are smothered with leaves this time of year. The barge’s propellers chopped through the shallows, grinding summer’s branches into winter’s mud. Metallic groans echoed through the hulls — the engine was stressed. It refused to wake up and breathe cold air. Fumes, a shade blacker than the day before, left streaks on the undersides of leaves still clinging to branches.

This too the dredgeman noticed. He saw, he remembered, but he did not think. He did not acknowledge the barge’s complaints. And so the barge pushed out, cut through the shallows, and entered the deep water.

A dredge barge might have a crane, or it might have a hook, a claw, a net, a suction tube, or a blade. The dredgeman uses the right tool for the job. On this lake though, there is only the worst job. The dredgeman learned that lesson long ago.

He was fisherman once, back when the city upriver was much smaller. He made a modest living, just one man operating a small boat, but he had Riley. That labrador was a fisherman in his own right; willing to stay out on the lake all day and night, running lines and hauling nets. He was a good boy.

Old Riley went grey in the coat, but he would still take a dip in the lake on a hot day, even if he needed some help climbing back on board. He got slower every year. The lake only got busier. He went under that speedboat and never came up. Old Riley just sank, too fast for a fishing net to find him.

The dredgeman — the old one, that is — preferred to get Riley on his own, but the fisherman insisted on coming. That’s when he first met the barge. That’s when he learned to use the rake. They dragged the lake all afternoon. No Riley. The two men had the same idea of why they couldn’t find the dog, but neither mentioned it to the other. The barge purred along smoothly.

It was not long after that the fishing business dried up on the lake. The old dredgeman passed away. But the demand for a barge operator not only remained, it boomed. The city upriver was growing, and the lake swelled under the flood of urban refuse. Few men were interested in delving into those tainted waters. An old fisherman bought the dredge barge at auction for a pittance. He painted it grey and rechristened it “Riley.”

Today, Riley was barking. The dredgeman had hoped to stay docked today, but before he even had the fuel tank filled the sheriff arrived.

It was a local girl this time, not another street kid from upriver. She and her mother had been driving back from the city the night before, the windy way. Black ice, reckless driving — the sheriff didn’t know how yet, but they ended up in the river. It looked like the mother was trapped on the driver’s side. The teenage daughter must have made it out of the car, leaving her to the river and the rocks.

The father demanded he join the search, but the sheriff fought him back. It could take all day, he explained, and she might show up elsewhere. The dredgeman just unmoored and went out alone.

The mud of the rivermouth was a familiar friend, but she had a new face every day. How was there any old junk left down there? The dredgeman hauled them up. He lined the docks with tires, he left heaping piles to burn. Yet every day there was something large enough, sodden enough to grab hold of the rake and make him think his work was done. It could be a truck tire, a log, or a monstrous half-dead fish. Those sad, deformed creatures fed from the bottom of the river, thriving in the runoff that poisoned so much else. This, too, the dredgeman noticed.

It was a slow day. There were no fast days, not with the rake. Today was slow all the same. The afternoon was wearing thin when something flashed in the mud. The dredgeman cut the power and went over to hose it off. A layer of silt sprayed off, revealing a shattered reflection: one hundred skies, one hundred barges, one hundred dredgemen. A cracked mirror laid on the deck. It was large with an ornate wooden frame that was only half rotted. The surface shone like real silver, but most of the glass was missing. More broke off under the pressure of the hose. The dredgeman stopped, considered the thing, then moved to haul it overboard. That’s when he found her.

The girl was smaller than he expected. She had been fully hidden by the garish piece of furniture. And, he noticed, there wasn’t much left of her. Her clothing was ripped away. Her color drained. She could have been another reflection of the sky, or a smudge in Riley’s paint.

It was late. That girl might have been found already, thought the dredgeman. She might have pulled herself out of the river, lost and disoriented but safe. Or maybe she grabbed a log raft, made it to the lake. A boat picked her up an hour ago and the sheriff forgot to radio him the news. The father didn’t need to see this girl. This little girl was a part of the lake. Only the dredgeman could identify her. The dredgeman goes out alone.

Gently, he took her in his arms and pulled her out of the mess. He washed mud and broken glass off of her as best he could. He covered her with a tarp and tried to get Riley moving again. The sun set. They breathed cold air. The sheriff was sorry to hear the news.